


Choices

by electriColor



Category: Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 23:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21261041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electriColor/pseuds/electriColor
Summary: Choices were made and recounted





	Choices

No one ever told me that I would spend what felt like days, weeks, months in my life looking for things, and that this habit would become even worse with each decade. Keys, car keys, papers, glasses, passports. This time, it is my sunglasses. I could have sworn I left them on the mantle above the fireplace, but they were nowhere to be seen. Hands on hips, I keep chanting ‘sunglasses, sunglasses, sunglasses’, wishing for them to show up, to manifest out of thin air. But to no avail.

Looking out, I can see Mother playing a round of chess with a visiting aunt from the neighborhood. I’m so glad that the new therapy is working so well for her. She is very present these days, still sharp as a tack, still a beauty at her advanced age.

‘Cheri, ou es tu? Viens, nous rejoindre!’ Where are you? Come join us!

‘Oui maman!’

If Mother calls for you to join, you do, even if you have to face a bright summer sun without your misplaced sunglasses.

I make my way across the cold tiles, each one intricate, made with craftsmanship which is hard to find these days. Real, good quality. Generations of families have walked across these tiles before the feet of our family took their first steps here.

Stepping out onto the much warmer ground outside, I spot my sunglasses. Of course. They’re right there, next Annella, on Elio’s freshly trimmed head, reading one of his books.

No more curls. But still the same brat.

‘I just spent the last half hour looking for my glasses, and here you are, reading while having them on’, I tell an oblivious Elio as a smile spreads across my face.

‘Oh sorry. They were yours?’, he says while looking up. Genuine confusion.

‘Keep them on. They’re cute on you.’, I say, as I sit down next to him, at the end of the table, reaching for his hand so I can link our fingers. His ring glistens in the sun. I can’t help myself so I raise his hand and kiss it.

‘What was that for, Ol?’, he says through a chuckle, looking up at me while he’s turning a page.

‘Nothing’

‘Nothing, he says.’

I’ve denied myself so much for too long. I’ve tried to make the smart choices for all my life. Maybe I did. Made the smart choices, right choices, but somewhere along the line, I missed out on making the good choice. The good, the best choice, sitting next to me, wearing my sunglasses, reading, always reading, and with so little, filling up my entire heart, my soul, my whole being.

He did ask me, at some point in the last couple years, while we were in bed.

‘Did you love her?’

What could I say. Yes, I loved her. I loved her figure, the ease of having her around, I learned to love her cooking, the way she could get snappy when things didn’t go her way, how she was instantly well received within my friends and family. Yes, I loved her. The elements that made her ‘Her’, as they came into focus throughout our courtship, dating history, our marriage, together with the things I didn’t like about her which made me go on and off with her.

I loved, and still love, our kids, born from our union, knowing they are my offspring, watching them grow from burping infants to young adults. Loved taking them to soccer practice, attending their school plays, preparing their bake sales, helping them on their science projects, teaching them to be honest, good, open and loving people. 

But you.

You…

We feel the same. We breathe the same, even when there is an ocean between us. We smell the same, deep inside, because we are living as the other at all times. Being close to you again has shown me that. I feel like I’m constantly learning things anew with you, like I’ve had a horrible accident and need to relearn all my basic motor functions. I feel again in ways I thought I didn’t know before but somewhere inside, I know that I had that knowledge all along. They just dropped to the wayside when I made the choice, the smart, right choice of choosing the bad choice of denying myself and thereby you.

I knew what love was, in the most abstract way. There was an idea, an ideal, a feeling I sought. I had no idea that this feeling would have found you to be its ideal, its only vessel. I spent days, weeks, staring at you, because I couldn’t believe that for all that it was worth, my idea of love chose you. A precocious, bratty, 17 year old smart ass of a boy. Something must have gone wrong, that couldn’t be right.

But I knew you felt the same. The same confusion, mixed with the heady scent of youthful immaturity. I could have started to deny it, right before then. My feelings could have betrayed me, that simply was not what I would have chosen for my life.

Then you chose me. You forced my hand. You spoke. We kissed. I knew that it wasn’t the right choice, the right thing to do. But my heart of hearts simply said ‘Yes’ and its verdict rested. Who was I to argue with the judge inside my heart?

So I told him.

“I loved her. Yes. She was the love my mind, my circumstances, my life chose. And you, I love you. You are the love my body, heart and soul chose, the place they chose to settle in. And because I would be empty without, I’m willing for all of yours to settle in mine. Because they’ve had their space marked when I first came to be, when I first felt something was missing and none of me knew what it was until I met you. Toi, tu m’a manqué.”

I breathed into the space between us, heaviness on my heart. He pulled me into a hug.

And there it was again. This sensation that I’ve missed for so long, which seemingly had evaded me during my parallel life as a doting, straight laced family man.

‘Yes’.

Elio was my ‘Yes’. Elio was the best choice all along. The best person I’ve ever known. How could I continue on in denying the best choice I could ever make.

I’ve missed out on so much. His graduation, his studies, his first successes, Samuel’s funeral where I was supposed to stand by his side and give him strength. From my side, I’ve denied him equally as much. He was supposed to be the one I went to celebrate my publications with, maybe even our first child together through one way or another, every single holiday and snow day spent under the covers on the chilly east coast.

Seeing him again, after 15 years, how could I possibly miss out on and deny him so much more? When denying him means the same as denying myself?

So you, Elio, you are my choice to be happy. To be content. To let my heart rest.

“Please look at me”, I think, stroking his fingers with my thumb as I hold his hand. “Just give me a look.”

And he does. Telepathy.

“What are you grinning about?”, which, coming from him sporting a similar grin, seems a bit rich.

“Say it.”

“What?”

“Come on. Say it.”

“You’re getting sentimental on me in your old age.”

I just keep smiling and staring at him. I could do this all day. There’s not a lot I need these days to make me smile from the heart.

“Fine. 5 years.”, while taking his, my, our glasses off.

“Happy Anniversary Oliver.”

“Thank you for being with me.”

“Goose, if it was down to choice, I’d never ever leave your side again.”

And I kiss him. Because I can. Because I choose to. Cause out of all the choices in the world, this is the one my heart settled on.

**Author's Note:**

> I had written this shortly after having read the book and watched the movie last year, but I never felt comfortable posting it. I wanted to but somehow it didn't feel right.
> 
> Now, after having read 'Find Me' in two days, I got that feeling that, maybe now I can post it. Funny enough that it works fine, with both the original canon and the extended 'Find Me' one. 'Choices' was meant to be the Coda for the series I've written before, Reparations, but I also works well now as a stand alone piece, next to 'Find Me'.


End file.
